Tuesday, November 4, 2008

South African born Paul Revington was named today as Ireland's new men's national senior coach.

Revington was the head Coach of the South African Men’s team fro three years where, under his reign, they progressed from 14th to 10th in the world rankings, qualifying and competing in both the 2004 Olympics and 2006 World Cup.

He was appointed by a selection committee, which included representatives from both Sports Councils, a retired senior athlete, the High Performance Director, Chair of the Board and Chief Executive, after a rigorous interview process against internationally recognised coaches from around the world and Ireland.

Chief Executive Angus Kirkland spoke of his excitement at the appointment “On behalf of the selection committee, I am delighted to introduce Paul Revington as the new Men’s National Coach.

"He will take over a team that is shaping up well for 2012, thanks in large part to the hard work Dave Passmore has put in over the last four years. It is an exciting time for Irish Men’s Hockey as we move forward with a world class coach and for the first time a fully complemented High Performance structure.”

Revington will officially commence the position early in the New Year will have an opportunity to see his new team in action against Scotland later this month.

Speaking about the new job, Revington said “It is an honour for me to be appointed as the new Irish Men's Senior Hockey coach. I have watched the Irish Team and Irish Hockey grow consistently over the years and am excited to become a part this organisation. There is fantastic talent and existing strengths within Irish Men's Hockey and I look forward to creating a dynamic environment that enhances this talent and strength."

25 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Great appointment. I really hope he manages to get our senior players playing as long as possible. We have great young players coming through but no where the likes of Shaw, Jermyn. They will need a few years learning off those lads before they can take over. Good look to the new coach and the team.

Below is taken from an Interview on the SA website....doesnt bode well guys lol

Full interview can be found here http://www.hockeysouthafrica.com/index.php?q=node/113but below is VERY VERY interesting!!

Would you say that your term as coach ended well with the South African Hockey Association? If not, why?

I think most people in our hockey community know that the relationship between SAHA and myself did not end off well. This was unfortunate because outside of my last 8-10 months as National Coach I really enjoyed working with SA Hockey. A relationship is always a two-way process and I am certainly not blameless in a deterioration of the relationship recognizing that my single-mindedness and straight forward approach was more often perceived as aggressive or stubborn. Every National Coach in South African Sport,no matter how technically or tactically proficient they are, requires the support and leadership of their governing body which generally creates a calm and motivating environment for players on the field. After doing well to qualify for the 2006 World Cup at the 2005 Africa Cup I obviously frustrated various SA Hockey officials and progressively lost support from key members of the SAHA executive. The phase our National Team were in during 2005 and 2006 post mass retirements after Athens Olympics meant we were bound to have tough results and phases that would require off-field support and leadership for the Team and the Coach.

how does that not bode well for us?SA hockey is a very controversially run organisation what with politics and racial debate due to quota systems at the very forefront of all goings on. All you have to do is look at the most recent times and all the controversy in the lead up to the Beijing games where the coach went against government wishes and selected more white players than he was meant to (by two i think).Obviously Revington was caught up in such ongoings when he was in charge and this led to him ending his time with the SA men's job on bad terms.

"Hope he clears out the old Back room staff and gets some new blood in"OK guys, lets start something decent together. List your backroom staff for Revingtons reign. My bet is Asst Coach - Steven Watt - knows all the Junior players whom Revington will have to work withAsst Coach - Trevor Watkins - knows the current system which is crucial to a new coachGK coach - Ivan Bateman - THE best GK coach around ( without any province bias to him either ) S and C - anything MUST be better than cuurent provision here in South!Lets hear all of yours with some reasons

I think they need to look at the complete structure of the coaching panels, look at offensive and defensive coaches and then technical experts. For example Who is the best goal scoring coach in the country .( who is not a clip board coach) in both the mens and ladies set up. Forwards out there who is the best coach you have ever had. ?? Defenders ? Goal keepers.?

Pity an Irish man "not considered good enough" for the job.Would have been great to see an Irish guy take the lads to 2012.But now S.African Mens coach, Womens, Assis. Mens.,the Malaysian dude did coaching in S.Afr. as well.Could understand it if they came from a hockey power like Germany or Holland but S.Africa are VERY average on the world stage(qualifying for Olympics due to crap teams in their area)

fulton will stay as assistant coach. nige henderson will stay as keeper coach.

manager may change or they'll keep hiles. may bring in arul or someone that he feels comfortable with. but there will be a budget on how much can be spent so most things will stay the same. revington will be a much more hands on coach than passmore

Would Watt be able to commit to that role with his already time consuming position in the institute of sport? Very successful and knowledgeable coach that did not see eye to eye with passmore, good option I think. Trevor Watkins - not of the standard to coach international hockey whether he knows the current system or not is completely irrelevant. Craig Fulton or Turloch O'Siochain would be a much better option.Ivan Bateman - excellent idea if he was willing or available and don't think the bias thing would be an issue but you shouldn't dismiss Nigel Henderson especially seeing as 3 of the Irish backline play in pembroke where he coaches and occasionally plays.You now have a munster(bateman), leinster(fulton or o'siochain) and ulster(watt) component and all are of acceptable standard for international level.

Pity there was no one good enough from Ireland, would have enjoyed seeing an Irish coach take the lads to the 2012 Olympics.Looks a bit strange...South African Coach for the men, women, assistant to the men, the Malaysian guy did his coaching in S.Africa????? South Africa only qualify for the Olympics because African hockey is crap. Could understand it if they were Dutch or German.Any thoughts????

hope the new guy realises that Ireland is made up of 4 provinces, not just leinster...ulster hockey is strong and yet there are not enough young guys from cookstown garvey etc being brought into the development squad......whereas if ur from pembroke or three rock ur in automatically...it was a joke...hopefully this guy can turn it around

Arul's C.V. looks good, but he has not had any sucess in Ireland. Trinity getting regegated in his first season with them and nowhere near promotion the second. Alex not even qualifying for IHL playoff like they would have been expected to last season. We've seen no actual proff he's good.